Alice Earl Wilder, granddaughter of Jerome B. Ford, wrote several letters to Beth Stebbins and Dorothy Bear recounting her adventures as a child in Mendocino. Last week we published one about Mendocino’s early years; below is another one of her letters, this one about her childhood memories. This article by Mary Stinson was originally published in the Mendocino Beacon on August 2, 2013.
Summer was a very good time because many cousins and grandchildren were there and we played together. We had a horse that we were allowed to ride called Rock, and many of us could ride on Rock at one time. One year in order to keep the younger cousins from bothering the older cousins, we were allowed to build a tree house. We could go up into the tree house and pull up the stairway that hung down.
Jerome and Martha Ford’s grandchildren on the horse named Rock, 1899. Aunt Ophelia Hayes has her hand on Rock’s nose, and Ford Pierson is holding the halter. Children L to R: Pauline Pierson, Elinor & Guy Earl, Mildred Pierson, Alice & Martha Earl, and Chester Rea. (Gift of Alice Earl Wilder)
The front of the [Ford] house faced the incline—it’s now called the back of the house—and we used to go down the pathway and across the incline to Aunt Ophelia and Uncle Emerson Hayes’s. He was grandmother’s [Martha Hayes Ford] brother and they lived in the old Freundt house on the cliff. We went down there to visit them and climbed down the cliff and sandbank behind their house and played on the inlet there at Mendocino Bay.
One summer there had been a big storm that winter, and when we went down to Big River beach there were a lot of big logs piled up. We could pull them and drag them and make houses with them and we had a good time.
The Ford children went to school in Oakland, but they came up to the Alder camp near Mendocino every summer. [In 1872, Jerome B. Ford moved to Oakland so his children would have access to good schools. He was active in the Mendocino Lumber Company’s San Francisco office until he retired in 1885. Alder Creek was a favorite camping spot of the extended Ford family. It was located below Big Hill, near the confluence of the Little North Fork and Big River, several miles inland from Mendocino.]
On the trees at the camp there were attached safes to keep things away from the bears and the like. The beds had a frame around them and the mosquito bar was put up over the tent and you pulled it together in the side. There was canvas over the top, and so when you got into bed, you pulled the mosquito bar curtains so that the little bugs didn’t get on you at night.
Once we had to move our tent because there was a lion that came over and my father was afraid that the lion would eat the baby up. Our tent arrangement was separate from the camp because it was more private for the baby and more convenient so that people could watch and make sure that the lion didn’t come down on us.
By 1899 [1902 actually] Uncle Chester [Jerome Chester Ford, who had taken over management of the Mendocino Lumber Company from E.C. Williams] had sold the mill [the remainder of the Ford family interest in the company] and bought property in Berkeley, and thus the wonderful summers in Mendocino came to an end.
Summer is still in full swing at the Kelley House Museum, which is open from 11AM to 3PM Thursday through Monday. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar to schedule a Walking Tour of the Historic District.